Deb Kelly does feel guilty. As well she should.

The last two days much has been said about guilty pleasures. Specifically, if we should actually feel guilty about them. Does eating whipped cream out of the can warrant feeling guilty? (Answer: well, for pete’s sake you should put it on some pie first. Think of the pie!) What about slipping off to dreamland in the middle of a busy day? (Answer: heck no. I have napped three times in the writing of this blog post alone. You’re welcome to do so too. I’ll still be here when you wake up.)

But now I am going to tell you about a pleasure that actually makes me feel truly guilty. Because it is evil, and wrong, and inherently bad, and because I cannot resist it.

In case you haven’t already guessed, I am talking about

TACO BELL

For those of you who don’t eat there, aka, people with a healthy sense of self preservation, Taco Bell is a mildly vile fast food restaurant that takes seven processed food items and combines them in various incarnations to result in hundreds of menu choices, most with the words “loco” in their name. The items are:

Vague Beef

Vague Cheese

Nacho Cheez (not close enough to actual cheese to be spelled properly)

Salad Slurry

Hot Sauce

Sour Cream

Tortillas

And what I order is all seven of these things, plus refried beans, in a glorious hand-held mishmash called a

CRUNCHWRAP SUPREME

If you have never had a crunchwrap supreme before, please do not go have one now, no matter how delicious it may sound (it is delicious). If you do your life will never be the same. Friends, the Crunchwrap Supreme is not a gateway drug of the fast food world. It is straight rock cocaine. It is so crunchy, so wrappy, so supreme-ly tasty that you will have to eat it periodically for the rest of your life which will be significantly shorter as a result. It is bad for you. It is made with questionable ingredients. It makes you gain weight. It costs actual money, money you may wish you had later to buy an in-home defibrillator. And it tastes so, so good.

That, my friends, is a truly guilty pleasure.

And chances are good I’m going to have to go eat one now.

Your turn. Everyone who fesses up about their fast food guilty secret pleasure in the comments wins my undying respect. And don’t say “I don’t eat fast food.” If you are reading this in America, you have had fast food. CONFESS! The truth will set you free. But not from Crunchwrap Supremes. Only death can free you from their powerful hold.

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This article has 13 Comments

I used to love McD’s, but got to the point about 10 years where I couldn’t eat it without — eh hem — consequences. My fast food guilty pleasure now would be custard from Culver’s. Never heard of it? More for me! It’s probably 80% fat and the rest pure flavor. It’s soft and creamy and richer than Haagen Daz. Plus, they’ll put M&Ms on it.

Growing up, custard was soft-serve from the truck that drove down our street. Those folks from Wisconsin do custard right.

Where to begin? I second Kelly’s Taco Bell, however, my deadly sin of choice is the cheesy gordita crunch. A tip of my hat to T-Bell… they actually call a product Cheesy Chubby Crunch and it does not deter me in the slightest. It’s that good. I’m on the same wavelength as Dana and Kelly but prefer Dairy Queen’s blizzards. Shake Shack cheeseburgers. Fries … bring them all to me. Dunkin’ Donuts chocolate coconut donuts. Cream cheese fried wontons. Oy! Who’s hungry?

Sad to admit, but I also love some Taco Bell, also. And this coming from a foodie! FOR SHAME! I also like those nasty Totino’s Pizza Rolls in the frozen section. If there wasn’t any guilt involved, though, I’m not sure these things would taste as good.

I tend to only eat fast food when I’m at an Indiana rest stop or otherwise stranded in the middle of our great nation … but.

I love me a Mocha Frappuccino (vanillin and potassium sorbate!). I don’t know if it counts, but I could eat the Herby Turkey from Bruegger’s Bagels every day. In college I survived on the #4 at Jimmy Johns, easy mayo, add cucumbers. That seems too virtuous to mention now.

Sometimes I need a paper cup full of Auntie Anne’s pretzel bites from one of those Chicago oases, and sometimes I have to eat premade frozen eggrolls. But don’t tell anyone or I’ll lose my foodie street cred.

Lindsay, I know admitting to these things can’t be easy for you. You are very brave. We with no food cred salute you. And though my God no, no, the Herby Turkey does not count, you better believe the pretzels in a cup do. Have you ever had a pretzel dog? It is a pretzel baked around a Nathan’s hot dog. That is a thing. I think of it as a way to soften the terrible blow of finding yourself at the mall.

This week is seriously freaking me out. I’m 3 for 3 on the guilty pleasures posts … because while I agree with you about Taco Bell (in fact, this cracked me up because my family has a running joke about “spin the wheel of vaguely Mexican ingredients”) … I, too, actually love the crunchwrap supreme.